Those who have visited the Holy Cross Chaplaincy site of late will have noticed that it’s been quite a while since anything new was posted here. The hiatus has been due to two factors… (1) an over-busy chaplain, and (2) the natural cycle of graduation and departure.
Fortunately, there is a third factor at play here: the natural cycle of new students starting their post-secondary schooling! I have been contacted by a number of new students now, so it seems to be time to start thinking about the chaplaincy at UBC again. Factor #1 still hasn’t changed, but as long as there is a need for and an interest in an Orthodox Christian chaplaincy and fellowship at UBC, I will “make time” to make sure that it happens!
To further that end, I have established an e-mail discussion group. It is time to re-imagine what the Holy Cross Chaplaincy at UBC looks like so that it can meet the present needs of the Orthodox Christian students there and so that it can work within the limits of the chaplain’s available time. I have put all those who have contacted me with expressions of interest in the chaplaincy at UBC on the list, but if anyone else out there is interested in the chaplaincy, please feel free to e-mail me at frjustin{at}holycrosschaplaincy.org (replace “{at}” with “@”, of course) and I will be happy to add you to the ongoing discussion!
Love in Christ,
Fr. Justin Hewlett,
Orthodox Christian Chaplain at UBC.
All Holy Cross Chaplaincy services are suspended for the duration of Great Lent. Please check back here for service details after Pascha!
Please note also that Fr. Justin is still available for on-campus pastoral services by appointment, as always.
Compline is cancelled this Tuesday as it is the Feast of the Meeting of our Lord in the Temple. We will instead be at St. John of Shanghai Orthodox Church near Commercial Drive to celebrate vespers and a litya. Service is at 7 pm. Come join us there.
St. Aphrahat the Persian on prayer:
Why, my beloved, did our Saviour teach us saying: ‘Pray to your Father in secret, with the door shut’? I will show you, as far as I am capable. He said ‘Pray to your Father with the door closed’. Our Lord’s words thus tell us ‘pray in secret in your heart, and shut the door’. What is the door He says we must shut, if not your mouth? For here is the temple in which Christ dwells, just as the Apostle said: You are the temple of the Lord for Him to enter into your inner person, into this house, to cleanse it from everything that is unclean, while the door—that is to say, your mouth—is closed. If this were not the case, how would you understand the passage? Suppose you happened to be in the desert where there was no house and no door, would you be able to pray in secret? Or if you happened to be on top of a mountain, would you not be able to pray?
Source: Aaron Taylor at Logismoi. The icon is by Lasha Kintsurashvili, and left to right it is mostly likely Ss. Ephraim and Isaac the Syrians and St. Aphrahat the Persian.